Voted the "Best Museum in Alaska” in 2002, the University of Alaska Museum of the North offers informal learning opportunities for visitors of all agesfrom kindergarteners to senior citizensthrough its award-winning exhibits, lectures and other public programs.

The UA Museum of the North is also a vital component of UAF’s research and education facilities. The museum’s research collections contain 1.4 million artifacts and specimens, representing millions of years of biological diversity and thousands of years of cultural tradition in the North. Using the collections, university students work with the museum’s faculty on original research aimed at interpreting the region’s dynamic environment and cultures.

The museum is currently building a 40,000 square-foot new wing, which will double the size of the facility. Scheduled to open in the summer of 2005, the expanded museum will be an architectural landmark featuring an Alaska art gallery, "smart” classroom, pre-college learning center, state-of-the-art research labs, expanded collections space and a multimedia auditorium.